Culture and Values: "Heart of Darkness" and "The English Patient"

Summary: How "The English Patient" by Michael Ondaatje and "The Heart of Darkness" by William Golding have been influenced by their culture and values. An analysis of literary techniques.

"Texts and the ideas that they represent are never created in a vacuum; they are always influenced by culture and values."

There is no text that is created by a vacuum, but rather every text is influenced by culture and values. Both texts use various techniques that demonstrate that this.

The style of The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje uses techniques that reveal that the text has been influenced by culture and values. Ondaatje has a very distinctive style of writing. It is very sensual, using sensual imagery to further character development and establish relationships between characters, as is seen with Hana and the English patient when she cleans his body. Features of his style that demonstrate how he is influenced by culture and values include Historiographic Metafiction, Intertextuality and point of view. His use of Historiographic Metafiction, which challenges official versions of the past by problematizing the...